Izzy Swart @syntacticsugarglider@merveilles.town

building the future is not a purely technical project, I don't even think it's a primarily technical project. it's a project of community and people, which is to say is inherently political. I think that word is a turn off to many programmers in the West who (due to Cold War era education I guess?) are effectively politically illiterate. and when you insist on being "apolitical" then all you can do is bolster the status quo. this is not how you make progress.

@yaxu that’s a very different reading of Papert, especially Mindstorms.

My understanding of his perspective, at least at that time is more like:

- Computer culture, from programming/engineering, is broken (gatekeeping, very hard to learn, and anchored to specific notions of productivity). It also places the computer in society as a specific type of machine, losing sight of its more generalized potential.

- We need a new concept of computer culture, and not just one, but many computer cultures. It should be based on humanist principles and make it easy for build to conceptualize their own transitional objects—things that make the computer a companion for people’s thinking and creativity rather than strictly a tool.

- LOGO/Turtle was his attempt at something like that, specifically in the context of education since until then computers were very hard to teach, and teachers were not equipped or trained to teach them.

- He specifically says that this is just one example of another way to think about computers, culture, and human-computer relationships. It is not, and should not, be the only one.

I really like this perspective and find that it moves away from programming specific goals, and more towards how to imagine computers differently in society.

"user friendly" is when you don't give the user any meaningful control over a system, hope this helps

DANGER

Happy One Year to @syntacticsugarglider <3

"If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is."

- John von Neumann

Don't go back to 'normal'. Western neoliberal 'normal' was physically, economically, emotionally, spiritually, ecologically, and socially self-destructive. You don't need to go back to consume or work in a bar, gym, club, office, restaurant, or anywhere else. It was all useless hyperconsumption and meaningless busywork. Let it die.

Friendly, joking, we-all-know-we’re-kidding style “light” bullying sucks. Sorry. It’s a shitty way to interact with friends. It’s hurting someone in the group more than you or they know.

I got a lot of that from my friends in high school, and I swore up and down I didn’t mind, but it fucked me up. It taught me that to be close to people I had to accept mistreatment and I am only really figuring out just how much that got in my head now that I’m almost 40.

Be nice to each other. Nice is good.

From the Gemini FAQ

"There are benefits to the style as well. It encourages including only the most important or relevant links"

I really hope none of you bought into this way of thinking. A link that's unimportant to most of your readers, for a learner, can be a doorway into a new world. An abundance of links makes texts more accessible to newcomers and helps to index the web. Anything that discourages linking decreases the health of the network. You should NEVER be stingy with links.

first of all, disclaimer: i'm anti-authoritarian, i want some form of anarchism, this thread does not advocate for authoritarianism and if anything shows how democracy is often authortitan.

quick intro: in switzerland we vote on most political decisions, and you can quite easily make your own referendums. we are probably the closest you can get to direct democracy (it's technically partially representative, but that's a detail). generally most swiss people have the feeling that they actively participate in political decisions, that their vote matters. this is not entirely untrue, however:

1. this feeling of participation manufactures consent. once something was decided, however slim it was, people will generally say 'WE' decided this, it's what the majority wanted, so be it. this makes questioning established political decisions HARD, people will simply dismiss your criticism by claiming WE all collectively wanted this, sometimes even for older referendums.

2. the power and money imbalances between capitalists / the establishment and working class people leads to campaigns leading up to votes generally being dominated by the more powerful side. they often use fear mongering and half truths in their campaigns making it hard to campaign against them, because you FIRST have to debunk the other (more powerful) sides claims.

3. a lot of decisions we have referendums on are laws created by parliaments being challenged by outside groups. uninformed voters will usually side with the parliament, assuming 'they probably do their job properly and good'

4. the general mindset that WE the people decide everything extends to the point where people will talk about parliamentary decisions as if they were collective decisions by US.

5. MAJORITY decisions cannot and never will respect any MINORITIES, per definition.

(direct) democracy creates an illusion of political participation, an illusion of consent and thus actually enables the government to much more easily pass laws against everyone's interests, with much less resistance.

it also further hinders actual change by telling people who stand up for their rights, protest, riot or just do their own thing to simply "participate in the proper process" instead and painting big movements as illegitimate.

being against the methodology is not the same as being against the sentiment